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Epidemiology - Infection Statistics

• A millionth of a gram of anthrax is a lethal dose. A kilogram can eradicate hundreds of thousands of individuals living in a metropolitan area (3).
• The estimated lethal dose adequate to kill 50% of people exposed to it is 2,500 to 55,000 inhaled anthrax spores (6).
• In 1993, the US Congressional Office of Technology Assessment estimated that the release of 100 kg of anthrax spores in the Washington, DC, area, would result in 130,000 to 3 million deaths. Such statistics match the lethal ability of the hydrogen bomb (6).
• There was an anthrax outbreak in 1945 in Iran resulting in the death of 1 million sheep (6).